Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

I know that was more than you might have been looking for, but there are some notebook junkies out here that I thought would benefit.

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

As far as areas of expertise, I teach things for pure self defense like this:

First: Weapons. People in real encounters today use them, so understand them and be ready for them. This includes firearms and edged weapons, as well as improvised weapons like screwdrivers (the third most common weapon in assaults today).

Second: Multiple Attackers. People travel in groups. You do it, and so do the bad guys. Learn to work as a team with your training partners, and learn to work solo against other teams. People will attack you in groups, and they will use weapons while they do it. Don't waste time talking about how impossible it is to fight multiple attackers - just learn how to do it.

Third: Confined Spaces and ambushes. Learn how to work in unexpected environments like standing in a crowded bar or in front of a urinal. Sounds silly, but it happens. Learn to read predator body language.

Fourth: Odd Environments. Learn how to fight in the dark, on slick streets, icy sidewalks, wet grass, hills, gravel lots, in and amongst cars, looking into the sun, etc. Any environment you can train in that doesn't look like a matted floor is good.

Beyond that, I teach individual skills starting from the ground up. Not groundfighting, but feet first. I teach mobility (footwork, positioning, etc.), agility (rapidly changing directions to take advantage of openings), sectoring (isolating and dictating movement and attacks), timing (hitting when it is easiest for you and most damaging to him), mechanics (the tools themselves, and how to throw efficiently), and recovery (getting back to where you can move or hit and he can't.). When a guy has that, we work strategies. I don't believe in pure defense - I believe in offense and counter-offense. Defense is a means for setting up other attacks, so it cannot exist by itself. By way of prioritizing:

If simple attacks work without a set-up, use them. They are most efficient.
If a set up is required, use other attacks to alternate lines. In other words, if you want to hit the head, go to the legs or body and follow up with the one you wanted.
If circumstances do not allow you to set up with real attacks, use feints. Fake your way inside and then hit to the intended line.
If feints don't work out like you'd hoped, and you find something in the way when you attack, see if you can trap it and hit anyway.

For you JKD types, that should register as: SDA, ABC, PIA, and IA.

If you must allow the other man to move first, draw effectively. (ABD). This will put you in a reactionary position, but if your mobility, agility, and sectoring are good, that can work to your advantage. It will also allow you to overcome stronger or faster opponents. We call this "Secondary Attack" since he's moving first. In order of most to least preferable, the types of secondary attack are as follows.

1. Intercepting - hitting him as soon as he breaks range.
2. Destructions - attacking the limb itself as he extends it to hit you.
3. Counter attacks - hitting him at the very end of his stroke, before he has time to recover.
4. Evasions while staying in range - make him miss without giving ground and launch your own attack whether he's recovered or not.
5. Avoidance - move out of range to make him miss, but preserve your ability to move back in and score.
6. Blocking - it's second to last because it's inefficient. If you're using your hands to block with, you aren't using them to hit with. Conversely, if he's hitting, he isn't blocking, so by blocking, you're passing up openings.
7. Taking a shot to give another - it's at the bottom of the list for obvious reasons, but sometimes it's the only option available.

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

The degree of fist "turn" has a lot to do with a fighter's preferred style. As chalambok pointed out, Ali did it with an upright fist from time to time, but then, Ali could do a lot of things most of us should never even try.

In my experience, the only real danger is that an upright fist makes you more susceptible to counter hooks by your opponent. You have to really contort to get your chin down into the pocket of your shoulder when throwing an upright fist. Not so with the palm-down method. In Dempsey's days, people were still very influenced by the old bareknuckle style, and hooks were not the tight, compact punches they are today. Dempsey, if you do some research, was actually one of the first fighters to use the crouch of today's fighters. Many of his opponents were still straight up in stance, and as such had a hard time hitting the crouching Dempsey. Maybe that's why he didn't worry about it so much. Also, gloves were not as robust then as they are today. Most gloves were stuffed with a few layers of straw and horse hair and that's it! Devastating power was easier to come by than in today's strictly regulated world of four-layer, multi-density foam. So maybe another explanation was that Dempsey didn't need the extra "pop" that turning the shoulder into a blow provides with the palm-down method of delivery.

Just some hypotheses...

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

You train realistic and dangerous aspects of fighting the same way you train any other dangerous skill. By practicing it under gradually increased stress, with gradually reduced limitations, and under gradually increasing degrees of reality. It is a cop-out for people to say that because you can't poke someone in the eye full force, it can't be trained and is therefore useless. If that were the case, then by transitive logic, the only way to teach people combat shooting would be to shoot each other in training. The only way to teach knifework would be to cut each others' organs out on the floor each night. Etc. Since that's clearly not the case (there are plenty of guys who are capable gunmen and knifefighters who don't train by killing their partners, after all), just look at what they do to train.

When it comes to eye pokes, for example, an easy fix is to add protective gear. That's what you do in boxing, right? So put on a simple pair of $.99 shop goggles and have your buddy try to target your eyes. You'll hear and feel the "pop" on the goggles, and since it doesn't take a remarkable amount of force to injure (or at least close) an eyeball, that should be plenty. For the more common (at least to me) method of thumbing the eyes when clinching, you just rake your thumb across the eyebrow instead of the eye. It takes more precision to do that than to actually hit the eyeball, so if you get there in training, it will work for real. I know, and yes, I have done it plenty of times in real fights.

The theory is sound no matter what the tool. Add a safety measure (like tapping out, headgear, gloves, or some other artificial margin for error), add a little personal control, and train in a graduated progression of stress, resistance, and realism. It's not hard to do. Just get creative.

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

Attack By Drawing (or Attack By Deception) is a common tactic in just about every boxing and fencing art throughout most cultures and historical periods. The common thread in all of them is simply that you want to convince an opponent that one thing is taking place, get him to react to that stimulus, and then capitalize on what should be a predictable result. here's a breakdown:

First, you have to understand your opponent's structure - his preferred fighting method, mentality, and his habits. You need to know what patterns he has, what his preferences are, and what he's likely to do in response to your own offensive and defensive movements. As a novice, you probably won't have the awareness to make this strategy work for you in the real-world, because it goes beyond a simple technical understanding. You need to understand behavior, and you need enough experience to be able to relate what one person does to the experiences you've had of other fighters who behave similarly.

Next, you need to understand and completely control your own fighting structure. More importantly, you need to be able to control your opponent's perception of your structure. If you leave a gap in your defenses to "draw" a particular attack, you need to know that he will a.) see the gap the way you intended, and b.) attack it with the tool you want him to attack with. That requires a strong understanding of how your opponent sees you, which again comes with experience. For example, an untrained brawler may decide to punch you in the face regardless of what's open. Drawing is pretty much useless on this guy.

Next, you need to understand that there are two categories of ABD - offensive and defensive (misnomers, but they'll work to illustrate the point). On offense, you use drawing by recognizing how an opponent responds to a particular attack; particularly, how he counters. You throw an planned attack, knowing he'll respond with a given counter - for example:

You know he's trying to counter over the top of your jab with his own cross.

You throw your "false attack" or "draw" expecting the cross from your opponent, and so you're prepared to counter that cross when it comes. if you can read a guy well, I find that this is the most devastating kind of ABD because it forces him not only to commit to an attack, but commit in a manner that completely takes his mind off the possibility of getting hit (you are, after all, in the middle of an offense, so he doesn't usually entertain the idea that he's being faked out). Of course, it requires an opponent who'd educated enough to try and counter your shots with a specific game plan, so you don't run into this a lot in your average streetfight. It's best suited to competition, sparring, or fights with a well-trained adversary.

Defensively, you simply create a hole in your defenses. However, like I mentioned before, you need to make sure you create the right hole. Let's say your opponent shows a propensity toward attacking with head shots (very common). You realize through some preliminary analysis that he hits a lot harder with his right hand than his left, and he favors that side. So you position yourself at the correct range, and you let that guarding hand on your left side (his right - his favored hand) drift a little low, knowing that he'll try and take advantage by throwing his favorite power shot to your chin. With experience and good footwork, you'll even discover where to position yourself so that you can dictate whether he throws a straight shot or a swing/hook. Again, you know he's going to attack in a certain way, with a certain stroke, and if you've done your job well, at a certain time. Then, it's just a matter of countering what you expected.

Again, the more practical experience you have, the better this method works. You need to have a good understanding for what people do in fights, and specifically what the guy in front of you likes to do. But the essence is the same:

ABD is about convincing your opponent to throw a tool that you can predict, on a line that you've pre-determined, and at a time when you're absolutely prepared to counter. When he does, you punish him and capitialize on the fact that he's not paying attention, is overly committed, and is (generally) off balance.

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

You've only gotten one negative rep?! My god. I'm swimming in them! I think most of them have been from treelizard and emptyness, though.